UPDATE:

Over the last few months, your contributions have enabled us to provide 120 community meals each and every week.

We have received over $6000 in support from family, friends, neighbors, and lovers of Bali from afar.  Wow! And a big THANK YOU from everyone benefiting from the Nusa Tonic Kitchen community meal service.

Additional support of approximately $1,400 (IDR 20,000,000) will allow us to continue the community meals service for the elderly all the way up to the end of the year.

Please consider supporting the continuation of our service by making a donation to this campaign.

Know that your support makes a world of difference, one meal at a time.

Please watch the video one of our young Balinese team members made to show the impacts your support and this project is making.

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The original appeal below has been updated and extended until 31 December 2020:

After several months of service to help communities in Bali cope with the Covid19 economic and health crisis, Nusa Tonic Kitchen needs your help to continue.

Please help us to continue providing regular, month-long nutrition support for vulnerable elderly members of communities in and around Ubud, Bali.

For as little as US$ 35 you can support the subsidized meal service for one elderly person for an entire month.

Each sponsored meal plan has a triple-benefit: (1) to provide older members of the community with supplemental nutrition by providing complete and balanced midday meals three times each week, (2) to give jobs cooking and delivering the meal service to younger members of the community who lack opportunities during the economic crisis, and (3) to contribute to the wider society's longer term shift to sustainable food systems.

Please read below to understand our impact and why we need your help.

On 6 April 2020, Nusa Tonic Kitchen cooked, packed, and delivered its first community meal service in response to the Covid19 economic and health crisis in Bali, Indonesia. We partner with local klian (village heads) and community health nonprofit Bumi Sehat to identify and distribute nutritious midday meals to those who need them most.

Conceived as a kitchen in service of people and planet, the project provides a triple benefit to the local community and beyond:

(1) Nutrition support for the community’s vulnerable elderly

Each week we are providing 130 plant-based, nutritionally balanced and complete, midday meals to certain elderly members of the greater Ubud community. These are some of the most vulnerable members of the community as they face the Covid19 economic and health crisis with limited financial and family support. By receiving nutritionally complete and balanced midday meals every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, they receive much-needed supplemental nutrition and a good dose of human solidarity in this period of social distancing.

(2) Cultivating new potential in the next generation

At the same time, we are employing young people who would otherwise have no work during the economic crisis to run the meal service. A retired owner of a warung (local eatery) is teaching these members of the new generation how to cook according to time-honored local culinary traditions. Through their work they are learning to combine culinary skills with knowledge of good nutrition, equipping them with valuable transferable skills in an area of growing future demand.

(3) Innovating for people and planet

The Kitchen is also innovating to contribute to public health and environmental sustainability more widely, answering the call from leading experts in nutrition and ecology as expressed in the EAT-Lancet Commission report (eatforum.org). We use the commission's report as a framework, complemented by science-based nutrition research analyses provided by nutritionfacts.org, combined with local culinary expertise and creativity. In this way we are adapting favorite recipes from Bali and other Indonesian islands to develop plant-based, whole-grain dishes seasoned with tonic herbs and spices that are nutritious, delicious, and affordable.

Need is growing while funds are running out

As the Covid19 crisis drags on in Bali with no clear end in sight, funds are running out but the community's need for this service is increasing.

Sponsoring monthly meal services for vulnerable elderly members of the community will sustain this service with its triple benefits until the Bali economy is open and running again:

We will be able to keep helping the elderly and their families, keep employing and training young staff, and keep developing innovative ways to make meals more nutritious, delicious, and affordable.

Please help by sponsoring one or more elderly recipients at US$ 35 per person and by sharing this project with others who may be able to help.

Working together we can make a world of difference, one meal at a time.

>>See more photos of our food and Kitchen in operation on

IG @nusatonickitchen

https://www.instagram.com/nusatonickitchen/